Scientists in Ontario, Canada have received funding to systematically figure out the most optimal way to grow perfect marijuana.
“The plain truth is that the environment controlled recipe, comprised of light intensity, light quality, temperature, humidity, nutrients, soil attributes—that recipe for specific commodities does not exist,” Mike Dixon, lead researcher on the project, told Canadian news sources.
“Every grower by the decades of underground growing has their own recipe, but very little of it is proven in the cauldron of scientific research.”
Dixon, a scientist at the University of Guelph’s Controlled Environment Systems Research Facility, is leading a group of researchers that just received $210,000 from the Ontario Centres of Excellence to conduct a careful study of cannabis cultivation.
The project will be carried out in partnership with a company called ABcann Medicinals, and will work to isolate the environmental factors that contribute to growing cannabis that’s perfect for medicinal use.
“We’re doing the whole environment control package, including the lighting systems, and the organic growing substrate that we’re developing,” Dixon said.
“We are looking at the plant in its entirety, its relationship to environment control systems, and how that ultimately defines the productivity in terms of the medicinal compounds of interest.”
To break that down into more straightforward terms, Dixon and his team of researchers are carefully controlling as many environmental factors as they can to figure out the optimal conditions for growing super-potent medicinal pot.
One of the main focuses of the project is a new, high tech irrigation system that includes tiny sensors designed to be attached to the stem of individual plants, and to measure each plant’s water levels every 15 minutes.
Along with meticulously monitoring water intake, the lab will carefully control “things such as plant growth rates, nutrient remediation, and organic compounds,” news sources said.
Dixon explained that a systematic, well-documented, scientific approach to cultivating cannabis is the key to getting the most out of the plant’s medicinal potential.
“This is just the leading edge of how the phytopharmaceutical sector must go,” he said. “It must approach the production of medicinal compounds in plants in this manner.”
